
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992                   TAG: 9203180339
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

QUALMS ABOUT GENETIC MANIPULATION

IN A Los Angeles Times article in this newspaper Feb. 8, biologist Michael R. Rose of the University of California, Irvine, said: "Aging is something we can manipulate, analyze and understand." The article also said that by genetic manipulation in cross-breeding experiments, "it may be possible to extend normal human life span beyond the biblically prescribed threescore and 10."

Science has long tried to reverse the biblical consequences of sin and the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. God has said that the life expectancy of man shall "contain 70 years, or if due to strength, 80 years."

I have serious reservations about genetic manipulation and tampering with biblical prescriptions. Only God has the power to reverse the aging process and remove the consequences of the Fall; he promises a divine genetic reversal in Revelation 21:4.

One thing scientific genetic manipulation does not address is the quality of life while it attempts to extend the quantity of life. Will it only mean prolonged days of labor and sorrow, pain and sickness - or will an extension of days make the quality of life better? Perhaps those who would spend many extra years in the nursing home would answer "no."

REBECCA RAMSEY

STUART

by CNB